Wednesday, December 30, 2015

We consider our breads a work of art that honors the traditions and techniques of European bakers. Each of our loaves are baked in small batches and hand crafted to ensure the highest quality crust, flavor and texture.

It’s good bread. But not good writing. The mix of plural and singular words in the first sentence — breads , work , honors — is confusing. The plural loaves would seem to explain the subject-verb disagreement in the second sentence, an instance of what Garner’s Modern American Usage calls “false attraction to noun intervening between subject and verb.” I see at least three more ways to improve that second sentence.

A possible revision, allowing the hype to stand:

We consider each of our breads a work of art that honors the traditions and techniques of European bakers. Each variety is handcrafted and baked in small batches to ensure the highest quality crust, flavor, and texture.

The three more ways: joining hand and crafted to make the usual compound word, placing the cart (the handcrafting) before the horse (the baking), and adding a serial comma. Another possible revision, eliminating much of the hype:

Our bread honors the traditions and techniques of European bakers. We bake each variety in small batches to ensure excellent crust, flavor, and texture.

[About hand and crafted : Merriam-Webster makes them a solid word. The Oxford English Dictionary joins them with a hyphen. The serial or Oxford comma is much debated, but as GMAU notes, “virtually all writing authorities” outside the world of journalism recommend using it. This post is no. 62 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

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“Orange Crate Art” is a song by Van Dyke Parks and the title of a 1995 album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. “Orange Crate Art” is for me one of the great American songs: “Orange crate art was a place to start.”

Don’t look for premiums orcoupons, as the cost ofthe thoughts blended inORANGE CRATE ART pro-hibits the use of them.